Bonnie and Clyde gangster guns sell at Kansas auction for $210,000
A photo of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, better known as the infamous gangster duo “Bonnie and Clyde,” believed to have been taken between 1932 and 1934.
Two guns thought seized from gangster duo Bonnie and Clyde have been sold at auction for $210,000 in Kansas City.
The Joplin Globe reported that an unnamed online bidder from the East Coast bought the guns, seized according to legend from the outlaw couple's Joplin hideout after a deadly Missouri shootout with police in 1933.
Two law enforcement officers died during a shootout, but Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow and all members of their gang escaped.
The bidder paid $130,000 for a .45-caliber Thompson submachine gun, known as a "Tommy gun" in gangster slang. The same bidder paid $80,000 for an 1897 12-gauge Winchester shotgun.
"We're happy," Reuters quoted auctioneer Robert Mayo as saying after the auction, attended by more than 100 people. "Nothing ever surprises me," he added, commented about the price.
The Kansas City Star quoted Michael Brown, who traveled to Kansas City from Las Vegas on Saturday to snag the Tommy gun for a new gangster museum, as saying he would only bid up to $115,000.
“Very few guns out there have such historical value, and that is one of them we were trying to acquire,” Brown reportedly said. “We took a gamble. We set a price ceiling. You have to take the emotion out of it, so we had a price that we were willing to go.”
According to the Star:
The Tommy gun was a Model 1921A, produced in the early 1920s and often used by law enforcement, military and criminals during the Great Depression. John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, as well as members of the Barrow Gang, supposedly used it.